Unit updates for version 0.8

[piranha]

I'm posting the current changes for version 0.8 so you have time to discuss additional changes .

Demon
Battle 5
Swarm +10 per demon. Max 55.

Green dragon
Battle 35 -> 40
Plunder 65 -> 55

Red dragon
Plunder 75 -> 60

Heavy infantry
Defend 10 -> 8

Unicorn
Negate fear 3 -> 4
Upkeep 12 -> 10
Move 16 -> 17

Pikeman
Cost 300 -> 275

[Argammon]

IMO the demon should be toned down further. That way it is still a must buy on large maps.

Perhaps max Str 50 and 6 demons.

[Maze]

My five cents:
Only 15 for one demon seems quite weak for an expensive three turner. I would rather narrow the "swarm range" as suggested by KGB before if I remember correctly by reducing the swarm bonus to 7: 25-32-39-46-53 (max 5 units) and a cap of 60 (with leadership or morale bonus).

Starting at only 15 you could have the opposite effect of pushing players to chose between not producing them anymore at all or producing them in even more cities (hence reducing the diversity which is the opposite of the aim of rescaling the demon): you would need more cities to produce them as you need 5 instead of 4 and you want to fill your losses asap as they start from very low base strength and are relying much on swarm. And for sure you don't want your demon to travel alone. Waiting for only one or two cities producing them would be painful.

My personal favorite but haven't read it from others yet would be: not amending the demon's swarm from max 4 to 5 units but in contrary reducing it to 3, into something like 35-45-55 or 40-45-50. A base strength of 35 or 40 (incl. own swarm) doesn't seem too much for "a demon" that has no other bonuses (except from flying). And the max strength to be capped to 55 or 60 incl. other units' bonuses.

If still the "5 units" (or hell no, even 6) is adopted, I would like to see the demon with movement 22 or so, following my argument of the pain of losing even one or two units and having to wait so many turns to have new units catching up. Otherwise the gryphon does the job for cities (also three turns, I know, but not depending on swarm at all it does the job on its own!) or I would even go for some unit that gives morale bonus: I would rather have havy infantry (one turn!) produced in two cities and red dragon in a third city giving them the bonus than buying production of demons in three cities and wait 6 turns to group six demons to have decent strength but lose this strength when losing already only 2 units.
OK, havy infantry is a bit exaggerated, let's say some two turners: havy cavalry for land and eagle for air. And oh yes, a couple of two-turns-produced eagles eat the demons alive with anti-air and red dragon bonus.

Yes, the demon needs balancing (= downwards) but in the end it's still a "demon". If further toning down (after above suggestions) is still necessary I would not go below 30-35 base strength (incl. own swarm) but rather increase the price to 1700-1800.

[Argammon]

I don't think that a single demon should be THAT strong. Compare it to other expensive units.

If a swarm of demons is stronger than a swarm of other expensive units a single demon must be weaker than a single other expensive unit, no?

The gryphon takes 3 turns, is a pretty good unit, and fights with str 25 outside cities and 45 in cities. I don't think that a single demon should fight with str 35 or 40 in AND outside cities. As I said, I would then prefer a single demon over the gryphon already. Ok, the gryphon is cheaper to buy but still.

My suggestion:

Single demon: str 25
2 demons: 30
3 demons: 35
4 demons: 40
5 demons: 45
6 demons: 50

Be sure, that I would still buy them if my suggestion was implemented.

[TheVic]

Seconds Argammon's strength curve.

Agree that a single demon should be weaker then Griffin, but the biggest problem is that Demons becomes the strongest unit by far, should that not go to a 3 HP unit like Green Dragon? So a max strength of 50 looks to be about right.

When should Demons be better then Griffin? 2 Demons in the open should be better then Griffin and still worse then Griffin in city. This indicates that 2 Demons should have at-least 30 strength in my opinion. If making 4 Demons still is not equal Griffin in cities, they will no longer be the obvious choice to purchase, as they are now.

Agree that creating a group of 6 3-turns (=18turns) units is very difficult at current cost and will make it viable only in certain rich maps or long games. But still best unit if cost is turned down a little.

The biggest problem with to weak base stat on Demon unit is that a early Demon city will be to easy to take!

Compare with Mammoth behind walls that really are painful to take compared with what you get in expansion power.

--- HI issue
I do not like the nerfing of HI, or rather, it is ok if upkeep is significantly reduced to say 2.
Game really needs cheep defender units to make crows and sea serpents not unreasonably good as city razers.
Already is sea coast cities very difficult to have if you do not dominate the sea.
Possibly helped by having city defense as minimum 5. Do no like city defense of 0.

[Maze]

Just a couple of thoughts:
Yes, swarm as an ability automatically should mean weakness when single, but minimum should be 25-30. And even then, a demon should fairly be able to win against an eagle, both intuitively ("demon" vs "eagle") and when looking at the cost.
- What I miss in the argumentations above is the pain when winning the battle but losing one unit. When "far from home" you don't only lose that one unit but also see the strength of the rest of your swarm reduced.
- Eagle production = 325, upkeep = 3, turns to produce = 2. Strength against demon: 30. ==> Eagles beat Demons.
- Pegasi: cheaper than demons but comparable strength (incl. equal moves and HP). Strength = 30 + gives 5 to other units in stack!
- Shouldn't 2 Pegasi (each strength of 30) + 3 Eagles (each strength of 35 incl. Pegasi bonus) be weaker than 4 demons (equal time to produce)? Even when the demons win (which luckily will likely still be the case in the several suggestions I read), the demons will likely lose one or more units and the remaining mini-demons will be worthless if far from reinforcements.
- Building-time hence -money: producing a stack of 6 demons (as per one of the suggestions) would not only cost 18 turns but also 450 gold in "waiting hours" (upkeep) for the already built units. If more cities producing, I would rather spend 1500 on Pegasi + Eagle than 2x Demons for their immediate readiness (= not depending on swarm bonus).

[Argammon]

Maze, I disagree.

Eagles are air combat specialists. You cannot compare a specialist unit against an all round unit.

Eagles are supposed to be good against demons etc. They are, however, crap against ground units. You could as well argue that Eagles are far to weak because they get their ass kicked by elves.

[Maze]

Argammon,
You are right about the specialist thing of eagles, but still:
- on a small map I would not build demons, nor would the opponent, so no need for Pegasi+Eagle to fight them. Havy Cavalry, sea serpents, ... play the game there. With new suggestions for demons, demons will not show up at all anymore as you simply won't have enough cities to both produce enough demons AND produce enough other one/two turn units to defend the cities and fill the demon's "waiting hours"...
- on large maps I haven't seen any player produce elves as a strategy yet to massively crush his opponent. But you are right, eagles are weak against land units. Still it is more on these large maps that I was reflecting: flying units are mastering most games on large maps and even then it is still possible to diversify with land units as you will own many more cities than on a small map. With an opponent betting on large demon stacks I would definitely think of countering him with Pegasi+Eagle.
If the P+E still doesn't convince (every game is different), in many occasions Pegasi only or Pegasi combined with other would still do the (cheaper) job against demons.

Also curious to see if the 55 max is a max for swarming or really a cap incl. leadership/morale/blessing.

[piranha]

Whatever cap the demon will get its only the cap of the swarm bonus. There is a cap for positive bonuses (leadership+morale) that is +25 and then there is a cap at battle 75. So a powerful hero + dragon plus full team of demons will hit 75 if they end up with a max of 50 or higher.
I think 5 demons should be about the right amount, 6 seems a bit too many.


+7 (5 demons), max 50 will look like this:
22, 29, 36, 43, 50

+10 (5 demons), max 50: (would mean battle 0 .)
10, 20, 30, 40, 50

+5 (5 demons), max 50:
30,35,40,45,50

Do you really think it will be good enough with 5 demons and 50? Getting 5 demon takes a while and it seems like they are only good enough to be used at 4 or 5. At 5 demons and 55 it would be a huge difference compared to now.

I know its easy to exaggerate a change just because it way to good right now. Don't want to make it useless.

Current beta 5:
30,40,50,60

Current Version 0.8:
15,25,35,45,55

As you can see you need 3 demons to match 1 demon in beta 5.

[Argammon]

IMO 5 demons at 50 should be fine.

I don't want to repeat what I said before, but one thing still has to be said.

IMO specialist stacks should always beat stacks that are useful everywhere. If I build a stack of 1 elephant + 7 heavy cav that stack is deadly on grassland but, compared to the demons, pretty useless elsewhere.

Another point is that it is, of course, impossible to balance the army set for all map sizes simultaneously. But then it is, imo, better to make a unit useless on 1 map size instead of overpowered on another.